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Olbermann Watch, "persecuting" Keith since 2004

We encourage Guest Posts (pro-KO, anti-KO or otherwise so long as they are on KO-centric topics). Today's Guest Post is from OlbyWatch reader Charles Martel.

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Keith's Special Comment of November 20, 2006 was not just about Keith disrespecting the president or Bill O'Reilly. It is a matter of life and death because, unfortunately, because people actually believe what he says on MSNBC.

Olbermann began saying "it is pathetic to hear the leader of the free world talk so unrealistically about Vietnam, when it was he who permitted the Swift Boating of not one, but two American heroes of that war in consecutive presidential campaigns."

Now the verb "to swift boat" might mean something different on Olby planet, we can't be sure how his mind works. So President Bush "Permitted the Swift Boating" of John Kerry. First it should be noted that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were not affiliated with Bush. Olbermann, who strong condemned Newt Gingrich for his imagined attack on freedom of speech apparently has no problem with calling on President Bush to suppress the speech of the American heroes who made up Kerry's chain of command in Vietnam. In OlbyWorld the president should not have "permitted" hundreds of veterans from telling their story.

Next he says "Mr. Bush" learned the wrong lessons from Vietnam.

Olbyâ€™s "primary" lesson: He says "that if you try to pursue a war for which the nation has lost its stomach, you and it are finished, ask Lyndon Johnson". The nation lost its "stomach" for the war well before it was "finished". Johnson, of course, lost his reelection bid in 1968 but Bush can't be elected again. Maybe Keith is threatening the president here? Maybe just predicting impeachment or some similar future which Olbermann considers to be a state of "finished".

Lesson 2: Olbermann says: "Mr. Bush, if you don't have a stable local government to work with, you can keep sending in Americans until hell freezes over and it will not matter." The flaw here is that we really haven't increased the amount of forces. In fact, the opposite is the case. The U.S. force in Iraq is not much smaller than it was in 2003. Perhaps this is Olbermann's advice against the position of even some democrats that more troops might help?

Lesson 3 is summarized in that Olby considers that Iraq is not part of the "War on Terror". Well Keith, American forces are fighting terrorists in Iraq. Islamic extremists do believe it's their duty to kill us and it's generally accepted that if we leave, it would be seen as a victory for our enemies and Iraq will become a safe haven for terrorists.

Lesson 4: Olbermann claims that "the same idiots" who persuaded presidents under the guise "peace with honor" to stay in Vietnam are telling Bush to stay in Iraq. He them mentions Henry Kissinger. The most famous instance of politicians claiming "peace with honor" was Neville Chamberlain justifying his appeasement of Hitler. Ironically, we today are appeasing Iran (developing nuclear weapons, calling for the destruction of Israel regularly, biggest exporter of terrorism, Hezbollah paymasters), who also happens to be causing the majority of problems in Iraq.

Lesson 5: Olbermann says that like Lyndon Johnson's, Bush's "presidency will be consigned to the scrap heap of history" because of the war. I guess Olby is telling Bush he should be worried about how history remembers him. Is this really a lesson of Vietnam? Worry about how history will remember you?

Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990's and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein's scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.

Keith then talks about the millions killed in Vietnam and 58,000 American soldiers dead. I'll point out that we are still under 3,000 Americans dead today and none of those soldiers were drafted and the great majority want to be there and believe what they are doing is right. As for the Iraqi civilian deaths it should be noted that an extremely small amount (140 roughly) are due to American collateral damage. And a case can also be made that the deaths that would have occurred if Saddam was still in power (death factories, starvation under corrupt "oil for food" and the centuries old Sunni/Shite hatred) are greater than in the chaos today.

Olbermann essentially then says our leaving Iraq will also embolden no one. Well this guy tends to disagree. And terrorists being emboldened?

Olbermann closes by saying "we'll succeed unless we quit" is wrong and that we can only succeed against terrorism when "Mr. Bush" quits.

The Vietnam War was a very complicated matter, and no amount of Olby spin is going to help understand its lessons. We fought the war with both hands tied behind our back. This was the essential lesson of the war.

U.S. troops were forbidden from entering North Vietnam, and also forbidden until the last two weeks of the war was the strategic bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong. We also failed to block the North's ports to prevent the entry of Soviet and Chinese supplies, bombs and ammunition which also built the enemy's resolve for the irrational fear that it would provoke the Chinese into war. Politicians were taking the decisions out of the hands of the military men.

We lost the Vietnam war here, at home. Any attempt Nixon made to fight the war correctly was protested. Politicians, too worried about being reelected and anti-war sentiment, acted not to win the war. Just like Olby is trying to do now, the media made everything worse. One small example: The Tet offensive was a great victory for the Americans, it was the first time they really got a fair fight with the enemy and Olbermann's heroes in the press somehow turned it into an American defeat (Cronkite's "unwinnable" statement came in the wake of Tet)

So can this all be summarized fairly well as "we'll succeed unless we quit" as the lesson from Vietnam?

Knowingly publishing classified information should be illegal. Why the hell should the American people trust media outlets to correctly decide what should be classified or not. The NY Times has recently said that it was wrong to write a story about a classified issue. Remember Al Jazeera is a "news" organization and has first amendment rights.

Let's not mistake Olbermann for some later-day Woodward and Bernstein. His investigative journalism is confined to the sports world, he and his staff merely repeat the talking points from the leftist blogs and websites. They don't even bother to fact-check to see if what they put on air is correct, nor do they bother to post an opinion contrary to their own.

Nixon really tried to listen to military men such as Admiral McCain(senator McCain's father) but at this point the expansion of the war required to win was too unpopular. Lyndon Johnson faught the war by tying both our hands behind our back. We could have won in months had he listened to the military men and kept politics out of decisions.

We cannot say a good thing about the Vietnam war, and it is sad that Iraq is becoming just as big of a mess. It is even sadder that not all men and women of draft age did not go to Canada. If no one agrees to fight for capitalistic reasons there would not be any wars. Fight War, not wars..., and if forced into the military turn your rifles on those who command you. Death is the best answer for those who support war..

We cannot say a good thing about the Vietnam war, and it is sad that Iraq is becoming just as big of a mess. It is even sadder that not all men and women of draft age did not go to Canada. If no one agrees to fight for capitalistic reasons there would not be any wars. Fight War, not wars..., and if forced into the military turn your rifles on those who command you. Death is the best answer for those who support war..

Bush did permit the "swift boating". He could have easily condemned those ads which would not be supressing free speach as much as disagreeing with what they said. He could have distanced himself from them. Instead all he could do was say all 527 group ads should be stopped knowing this of course would not happen since they are "independent". This is the same guy who let many of these same people that worked on the Swift Boat ads put doubts out about McCain becasue of his experience as a POW in the 2000 primary.

Primary Lesson...Johnson did not lose he relection bid. He didn't even run for president. Due to his fighting a war the people didn't like, his own party fractured and he decided it was better to step aside. Yeah Bush can't run for president again but I think the last election showed the same thing happening in the republican party. members of the aprty were distancing themselves from Bush.

Lesson 2... Nice try Charles. You really misrepresented the point here which wasn't about troop levels. It was about sending troops to help prop up a unstable government. We put 500,000 troops into Vietnam and that did nothing. The government fell. We have far less in Iraq but his point was you can send in more or not but the fact we are propping up an unstable government again and we have been through this before and failed.

You may think we lost the war because we fought with our "hands tied behind our back." I love this point. It is such a cop out and not true. We lost the war because it wasn't our war to fight. We chose to go there(we were not invited by Vietnam but by another country that was occupying the land)) and we chose to get involved in a civil war and we chose a side on that war. Like any great nation before us, we have the ability to lose a war. Yes we used a flawed strategy in Vietnam. Yes we constantly revised the strategy though and it still didn't help us. Yes we won the Tet offensive but that didn't make the people of South Vietnam feel better about us. You know that no nation in history has ever successfully occupied the Vietnam penninsula. You kind of forget about the important historic point when you blame our politicians, military stategy, and media for us losing the war. We should have never even gone there because it wasn't our war. We have a tremendous history of victory in fighting wars that actually involve our direct interests(revolutionary War, War of 1812, French and Indian War, World War I, World War II. We have a horrible track record of getting involved in wars that do not reflect our direct interests(Korea, Vietnam, Iraq 2003).

Of course the Swift Boat team was in bad taste and obviously Bush benefited off of them but this is valid when Olbermann is making Gingrich out to be some anti-freedom of speech Nazi over his advocating against the freedoms of terrorists. Newt was primarily talking about jihadists websites too.

Yes, it is fair to say Johnson lost his reelection bid. From wikipedia â€œhis reelection bid in 1968 collapsed as a result of turmoil in his partyâ€â€¦.So yea, he lost the reelection bid.

I know republicans were distancing themselves from Bush. What I was getting at here is Olbyâ€™s overdramatic â€œNo youâ€™re finished Mister Bush!â€. Olbermann is so obviously playing to his irrational â€˜hate Bushâ€™ base that itâ€™s embarrassing that heâ€™s even considered a â€˜journalistâ€™.

So next, you are just talking about the inherent nature of â€œunstable governmentsâ€ and how you believe it is doomed to fail. OK. Again, Obviously, unstable governments donâ€™t help anything but this is about more Olbyspin that were sending victimized kids â€œUntil hell freezes over!â€ to their sure deaths. The fact that the government is unstable is, of course, valid in rational debateâ€¦but in Olbyworld itâ€™s used to insult both the President and Bill Oâ€™Reilly, not to make any coherent point of argument.

You basically say in the last paragraph that we never should have gone to Iraq. Thatâ€™s your opinion and you may well turn out to be correct. I still believe that the â€œhands tied behind the backâ€ is valid. Iâ€™m not the only one with that opinion, most military men of the time have it too. Again, you CAN believe that going into Vietnam was wrong and still understand that we fought it all incorrectly. This manner in which we fought is what ultimately doomed us, not choosing the wrong fight. That is what is impossible to drill into the mind of Olbyloons. Yea, Nam looks like a stupid war to have fought in hindsightâ€¦but we could have won in months had we done it right.

How are the South Vietnamese people or Iraqi people supposed to think well of us when all they see is anti-war press and a country thatâ€™s ready to pull out? Would you as an Iraqi fight for freedom when itâ€™s almost certain that youâ€™re going to be abandon by the U.S.? Why not seek protection from the Shiite rebels who look like the new top dog with their new Iranian guns? I see a stronger link between our determination(or lack there of) and the resolve of the insurgency than anything else. So yea, we probably will lose Iraq.

Of course the Swift Boat team was in bad taste and obviously Bush benefited off of them but this is valid when Olbermann is making Gingrich out to be some anti-freedom of speech Nazi over his advocating against the freedoms of terrorists. Newt was primarily talking about jihadists websites too.

Yes, it is fair to say Johnson lost his reelection bid. From wikipedia “his reelection bid in 1968 collapsed as a result of turmoil in his party”….So yea, he lost the reelection bid.

I know republicans were distancing themselves from Bush. What I was getting at here is Olby’s overdramatic “No you’re finished Mister Bush!”. Olbermann is so obviously playing to his irrational ‘hate Bush’ base that it’s embarrassing that he’s even considered a ‘journalist’.

So next, you are just talking about the inherent nature of “unstable governments” and how you believe it is doomed to fail. OK. Again, Obviously, unstable governments don’t help anything but this is about more Olbyspin that were sending victimized kids “Until hell freezes over!” to their sure deaths. The fact that the government is unstable is, of course, valid in rational debate…but in Olbyworld it’s used to insult both the President and Bill O’Reilly, not to make any coherent point of argument.

You basically say in the last paragraph that we never should have gone to Iraq. That’s your opinion and you may well turn out to be correct. I still believe that the “hands tied behind the back” is valid. I’m not the only one with that opinion, most military men of the time have it too. Again, you CAN believe that going into Vietnam was wrong and still understand that we fought it all incorrectly. This manner in which we fought is what ultimately doomed us, not choosing the wrong fight. That is what is impossible to drill into the mind of Olbyloons. Yea, Nam looks like a stupid war to have fought in hindsight…but we could have won in months had we done it right.

How are the South Vietnamese people or Iraqi people supposed to think well of us when all they see is anti-war press and a country that’s ready to pull out? Would you as an Iraqi fight for freedom when it’s almost certain that you’re going to be abandon by the U.S.? Why not seek protection from the Shiite rebels who look like the new top dog with their new Iranian guns? I see a stronger link between our determination(or lack there of) and the resolve of the insurgency than anything else. So yea, we probably will lose Iraq.

Nice...Stop wars by killing your own leaders...makes sense on Olby-planet

So, taking this to the next step, the members of the continental army, should have killed Geo Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, et al. instead of fighting the British and winning independence from England

The GI's of the 1940's should have killed Patton, MacArthur, FDR, Harry Truman, et al and let the Japanese have the Pacific and the western edge of the US while letting Hitlerand his ilk complete thetake over of Europe, Northern Africa, the USSR

If those guys had only done any of that, then Vietnam and Iraq would never have happened and O'Lie would be happy and he could kick back and watch Olbermann and....umm, wait a sec...no revolutionary war...no creation of USA, no bill of rights, no first amendment freedom of the press...no Olby...what to do, what to do, what to do...